Quote Originally Posted by BigCheez View Post
The fight designers are doing an excellent job. The problem is the restrictions that other aspects of the game are forcing them to work under. The problem is absolutely not that difficult fights require players to build consistency.
The problems with restrictions doesn't only come from the game's netcode or engine. There's also restrictions placed on the devs by players who complained about certain mechanics because of various reasons. It's why everything is just "place AoE here" or "spread/stack" in different formations.

We used to have very creative and unorthodox fight design in Alexander. While some of those things were kinda whack (A2S gobwalker thing for instance), but a lot of other stuff was just complained about because "muh uptime". It's no wonder we just have spreads and stacks in the game now when every time they try something different the parse brains shit on them for it. Players were complaining about the fights then, so SE fixed it, and players are still complaining. It got way worse in EW when tanks were just an easier DPS role that kitchen sinked or invulned every buster. And I hear healer wasn't much better.

I do agree they have kind of put themselves into a corner with the design. But I think there's more than just the general game design at fault.